It is well known to protect surfaces such as horizontal surfaces with materials that can withstand substantial wear. Examples are surfaces around sinks and cooking areas. This protection is also important in applications such as vertical surfaces adjoining wet areas, such as showers.
The materials can include ceramic materials or quarried materials that are shaped and placed together to form a substantially impervious surface. While it is possible to make such surfaces from a single portion of a material, such applications are necessarily custom-made and, accordingly, expensive, because of the time required to make them. In many cases, it is more economical to cover surfaces with substantially identical tiles. These tiles are either abutted against one another, or placed close to one another and the gaps between filled with a grout material that renders the surface substantially impervious. Where necessary to fit the tiles, the tiles are individually cut, placed and grouted.
In construction, such surfaces are first defined by structural components, such as plywood, to support the surface. The protective surface is then formed over the structural components and glued to the structural components.
In most modern-day applications, the finish of the installed surface is all-important. Unless the surface is expensively custom-made, the facing of the surface, i.e., the portion of the surface that faces outward, must be applied separately from the application of the major portion of the surface. For example, where the application is that of a substantially horizontal surface, the edges of the horizontal surface must be finished properly, typically by forming a vertical face that adjoins the edges of the horizontal surface.
In currently applications, the facing of a surface is created separately, generally by adhering a face piece onto the outer edge of the major portion of the surface. This process, however, requires a seam (such as a channel of grout) to be formed in the major portion of the surface. Such a process is both unsightly and subject to allowing intrusion of undesirable substances (such as water) into the surface. Furthermore, it is frequently desirable to give the facing a shape that is difficult to form by adherence to the major portion of the surface.
Accordingly, it is desirable to have a surface-covering system that is not subject to these faults.